How does your business wind up at the top of a search?
If you answered this question with a pause, jaw agape, and mumbled something like, “Uhhhhh…” – then you’d be in the majority.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) relies on seemingly magical algorithms. But there is a method to that magic and Leslie Van Zee tells us how anyone can optimize this information in her blog post entitled, “What Everyone Should Know About SEO.” In this helpful post, she highlights some simple ways to make the most of SEO.
Call it what it’s called.
It’s important to have a page title that accurately reflects the kind of business you are in. The more accurate, the more title counts you will receive. Additionally, being unique and descriptive about your business can benefit your SEO rankings.
Don’t make me work too hard.
The easier your site is to navigate for any user, the better a search engine is able to evaluate the most important content. “Breadcrumbs” are a series of links that users can follow to get through your site easily.
Hello, my name is _________.
Promoting your business carefully is the key here. You want to get noticed but you don’t want to be red-flagged for being extreme. It’s a fine line between popularity and mania. Van Zee offers simple solutions to good promotion: Put your website on your business cards. Create an RSS feed to update users on new happenings. Link to other related sites that complement your business.
Get the right tools for the job.
Webmaster tools are free on most search engines. Use them. Let them help you. They are designed to make it easier for the big search engines to gather information about your business to make their search results better – and for you to identify any problems which can negatively affect your SEO efforts.
Content. Content. Content.
Probably the most obvious yet most ignored rule is to make your content great. It will have the biggest impact on your long-term SEO results. The simple rules are: Be relevant, be current and be interesting. You’ll have people coming back in droves and your SEO will be the last thing you need to fret about. The Ocean Group knows something about this. In fact, we wrote this blog post in the spirit of this very rule.
Go forth and optimize your search results!